The Hindu Android app powered by MobStac recently crossed half a million downloads. MobStac has been associated with The Hindu as mobile strategy partner since 2011 and has helped them succeed with their mobile website and apps for iOS and Android.

The Hindu Mobile Website success

Early in 2010, The Hindu realised that about 4 percent of their online readers used mobile devices to access their website and the numbers only grew over the next few months. Seeing this huge potential, The Hindu approached MobStac to develop a mobile website that captures all the features available to their online readers on mobile.

Going along with the publisher’s ‘content first’ philosophy, MobStac ensured that the mobile website for The Hindu,  was designed to work seamlessly across all devices. Read more about how The Hindu increased their readers 3x with a mobile optimized website.

Soon after its release in 2011, The Hindu mobile website clocked about 40 to 50k mobile page views per day. With the success they saw from their mobile website and growing demand from their readers for a mobile application, The Hindu realized the need for a mobile presence beyond a website. Hence, the decision to launch native apps for Android and iOS.

Why Android-first?

Being termed as one of the fastest growing mobile platforms, there has been a considerable buzz around Android apps and news updates. According to the 2013 mobile news consumption survey conducted by Reynolds Journalism Institute, more than 55% of the survey respondents reported having used their mobile device to read news.  Moreover a recent report by Gartner states that 

Therefore to keep up with the changing consumer trends, The Hindu decided to leave the task of creating their Android app to the experts whom they banked on for huge success of their mobile website.

Feature packed Android app

The app comes with a clean design and easier navigation that puts content at its heart. Here’s a list of the features included in the app.

1. Dynamic Menu

With a fully customizable app menu, the Android app makes it easy for the publisher to remove a redundant section, add a new section or even change the order of the categories. And all this is possible even without opting for an app update.

2. Personalize your Home Page

The Android app lets readers customize their reading experience by giving them the option to choose the sections that appear on their home screen.

3. Provides location specific content

The Android app automatically detects the location of the reader and displays the corresponding city-specific news on their home screen.

4. Save articles for a later read

The app also lets its readers save articles to their ‘Favourites’ list, allowing them to easily access interesting offline read at their convenience. The app does not require its readers to use third-party services to benefit from this feature.

5. Makes sharing easy

The social media share buttons on The Hindu Android app makes it easy for readers to share their favorite articles and photos through all social media channels or even mail them.

6. Native UI

The Hindu Android app also comes with native controls for interactions that ensure even in the case of any sudden Android update, the performance levels remain intact. Moreover it also optimizes the images and displays them with high clarity on both the mobile website and Android app.

The Result

Today, having crossed 500,000 downloads, The Hindu Android app is listed as one of the top five apps in the News and Magazines category on Google Play. More importantly, with a dedicated user base that kept returning, the app now has an average rating of 4.3 stars out of 5.